[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Quite possibly...



Ralph, the American public was rapidly warming to small and efficient cars in the 60s... lots of Americans were discovering the small European cars, like VW's Beetle, and realizing that not all vehicles had to span 2 zip codes. By the 70s, even the muscle cars were scaling down in size and getting better mileage, and though they weren't as powerful as before, were still selling.

They weren't muscle cars anymore. They were econoboxes with the old names attached (Madison Avenue???) The last real muscle car to die was the Trans-Am.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

But Detroit was being forced by clean air regulations to build ever-more-complicated cars and emissions systems, which meant a severe curtailing of their profit per car. At the same time, big car sales were actually dropping compared to sales of small cars, which were cheaper because Americans wouldn't accept more expensive smaller cars, but which cost them more to manufacture because of the emissions equipment. Detroit saw that their profit margins would never be the same again.

Detroit's solution was to take advantage of the fact that the EPA regs basically omitted trucks from its consideration, since they were (at the time) a noticeable minority of the vehicles on the road, especially in commuter's hands, and therefore considered not worth regulating. Detroit could build trucks at a lower cost, since they did not need the same emissions equipment. But how to sell America on trucks?

Solution: A massive Madison Avenue ad strategy that runs essentially unchanged today, presenting the rebranded "Sport Utility Vehicle" as the vehicle everyone needed... even before they knew they needed them. They did NOT present them as "Big, like your Daddy's car." You never carried coolers, canoes, TVs, barbeque grills, three kids, four dogs, footballs, soccerballs, frisbees, and every toy you owned in your daddy's car at one time. They presented them as sexy and fun and cool, and they even purposely appealed to America's interest in the environment by suggesting owners could take their trucks into the green mountains and across virgin streams, seeing the environment up-close. (And incidentally presenting the then-familiar MPG figures, if at all, in almost invisible fine print.)

And simply because they were bigger, and "bigger things always cost more," Detroit sold them for more, even as they built them for less, making even larger profits. Then they spread money throughout the government to make sure the EPA regs would not be rewritten to include trucks, and kill their gold-plated chicken disguised as a golden goose.

And they displaced the station wagon. Look at how many station wagon are made today. Maybe a mini-van is better, but with the exception of Chrysler (who came out with it) it was a lot cheaper and quicker to use existing tooling for trucks that make their own mini-vans.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

America does not "want" Big-Boat cars. Prior to the 60s and 70s, they wanted them because ALL cars were big... they didn't know anything else. Since then, they have been conned into thinking they still want big vehicles, by ad methods that have worked on industrialized America for over a century, and have sold Americans on everything from Tang to Pet Rocks to Underoos.

Every heard of the Nash Metopolitan? Early 1950's, made in the US, smaller than a WV bug. And it stiffed big time. A guy in my neighborhood in San Antonio, kept several as collectables.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

(This is not to say that no one in America needs a truck... but that the SUV, specifically, was a vehicle invented for the specific purpose of selling spiffed-up trucks by appealing to people's base emotions (be cool, get laid), and that the number of trucks sold over the past 30 years FAR, FAR outstrips the number of people who actually need a truck in America.)

Going to require a government license to buy one? The first SUV was built by GM (the Suburban) in 1935. Yep, 1935! It wasn't invented for the specific purpose of selling spiffed up trucks. It was for a truck big enough to pull a big trailer (or boat) at the same time it could seat six, which a pickup truck couldn't, so the family could go along. (And the only thing that might get laid in the SUV then was the horses being towed in the trailer being pulled...)

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I hate to put it this way (because it's so f****n' sad), but in the same way that Americans were convinced that they wanted trucks, Americans can just as easily be convinced that they really want small and efficient cars... if it is within the desire of Detroit, the U.S. Government, and the rest of the auto industry, to convince them so. Ad campaigns have proven their ability to sway the public many times over, if done creatively and with a careful consideration to influence the emotion of the consumer. Remember the Crying Indian? Remember Smoky the Bear? Does anyone 40 or above in America not remember them?

Hmmm.... By that standard Obama won because he outspent McCain 4 to 1 and had better ad men.

Steve, we look at the same facts and come to different conclusion. That's because we have different biases. Different biases don't bother me, what disturbs me is the underlying concept of "I'm right, (Ok so far) and the rest of the world needs to change it's ways to match mine." (that second part disturbs me.) And it particularlly disturbs me that when I mentions that, you blow a gasket.

Me, I'm a firm believer in voting with my feet. I live in an area that (generically) rather libertarian. Why can't I be left alone to go to hell my own way? I don't tell urbanites how to live....